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How to decorate with one of the most versatile colours in interior design.

Blue is one of the most versatile colours to use in the living room, and lends itself to a multitude of design styles. It spans a cooling spectrum, from pale sky blues that pair wonderfully with crisp whites, to plush green-toned peacock blues that work with velvet and brass, to deep inky grey-blues that create moody and sophisticated design schemes.

In colour psychology, blue represents stability, harmony, and peace. The ultimate shape-shifter, blues can be youthful and bright, they can conjure images of the Mediterranean, or provide a calming backdrop for moments of relaxation.

'Gone are the days when blues were seen as too cold to use,' says Sarah Keady, House Beautiful's Style and Interiors Director. 'Dark, inky hues are now the go to for communal areas like living rooms and kitchens – its cocooning but also wonderfully dramatic.'

A blue living room doesn't necessarily mean wall-to-wall colour. You can use clever paint techniques to colour skirting boards and window frames, create an eye-catching blue gallery wall, and introduce complementary shades of peachy pink or sunny yellow.

If you're considering a living room makeover in the near future, read on for 16 ways to decorate with every shade of blue...

When you go bold with your walls, there can be a tendency to pare back the rest of the room by using accessories sparingly, laying plain carpets, and relying on a lot of neutrals. It's certainly not the only design route however, as you can see here, a striped carpet and lots of artwork makes for an interesting and inviting living space.

Pictured: House Beautiful Soho Stripe Carpet at Carpetright

To create a blue living room, you don't necessarily have to paint your walls. We love the clever trick used here of framing with blue instead. Keep your walls white, and paint your doors and architraves, window frames, built-in storage, or crown moulding – you can be as vivid as you like with your choice of blue without overwhelming your living room.

Pictured: Walpole™ No.42 paint at Mylands

We love the idea of using a single colour to create a cohesive gallery wall. To prevent it from looking too uniform, vary the size of your artwork as well as the thickness of the mounts. You could experiment with different woods on your frames too – deep blues work wonderfully with pale wood frames.

Pictured: Gallery Wall Selection at Desenio

What were we saying about paring back a blue living room? Not necessary. This is decorating at its most joyful, with an abundance of colour, plush materials, and over the top features. Note that this room benefits from a lot of natural light, which helps to lift the dramatic indigo blue on the walls.

Pictured: Stone Blue at Farrow & Ball

Colours that sit on opposite sides of the colour wheel, or 'complementary' colours, have a high contrast between them that creates a bright and vibrant colour scheme. For blue, its complements are warm reds, oranges, and yellows. As you can see here, the combination creates a sunny and cheerful living room.

Pictured: Home Collection at Habitat

Blue makes a great complement to darker varieties of marble because it can bring out any blue undertones in grey veins. Both fall on the coolest side of the colour spectrum, so use accents of brass, burgundy, or ochre to warm up your space.

Pictured: House Beautiful Delta 3 Light Marble Cluster at Homebase

A dark blue-grey on your walls can be so elegant, but it can also appear a bit flat, especially if you go for a matt finish. Metallics are your antidote here as they can add a bit of shine and bounce light around a room. We love the clever strip of gold paint that frames the skirting boards and fireplace here.

Pictured: Knoxville Grey at Benjamin Moore

It's not all green in the countryside. This bright and playful shade of blue finds a happy home in a traditional setting that has all the markers of a quintessential country pile – the oversized ginger jars, mismatched artwork, sink-in squidgy sofas, and colourful ikat cushions.

Pictured: Lulworth Blue at Farrow & Ball

Few colour combinations are as clean and fresh as blue and white. This deep Serge blue from Farrow & Ball is particularly effective because of the high contrast, and we love the idea of painting your shutters the same colour as your walls.

Pictured: Serge paint at Farrow & Ball, and Regency Tulip Fabric (on Sofa) at Liberty

The colour of cloudless skies and sparkling seas, blue was made for Mediterranean interiors. If you want to create the look and feel of a Greek villa or Italian palazzo, pair your blue shades with warming accents of sunshine yellow and earthy ochre, and pick up Mediterranean design features such as shutters, stone floors or terrazzo tiles, painted wood furniture, and plenty of plants.

Pictured: House Beautiful Matt Emulsion Paint BB.37 at Homebase

This blue living room could be a photograph from the 1950s, with the saturated hue and mid-century furniture. Saturated colours are very effective at drawing the eye, so they're usually used on feature furniture or details you want to highlight. Here, an all-over saturated colour palette (the blue on the walls, lilac upholstery, and pop of deep green in the plant) creates an intense and rich living room – this is a perfect colour palette if you want to create a vintage feel.

Pictured: Ercol Favara Sofa, Marino Armchair, and Romana Highboard

This sophisticated living room is full of texture – the panelled walls, cool marble table, plush velvet sofas, low pile rug – and yet still appears understated thanks to a modest colour palette of just four colours.

Pictured: Cricket Sofa at Sofology

A moody and sophisticated colour scheme here, with a bold choice of inky blue paint and furniture to match. If you're going dark in your living room, consider painting shelving in the same colour as your walls – any accessories you display will stand out brilliantly against a uniform background.

Pictured: Ercol Cosenza Armchair at Furniture Village

Colour has been proven to impact our mood, productivity, and even our quality of sleep. Pale blues are particularly effective at calming and soothing a busy mind, so go light in your living room if it's used for peaceful relaxation rather than entertaining. You can see how effectively stronger colours (like that fabulous peacock blue sofa,) stand out against a uniform pale backdrop.

Pictured: Longacre™ No.102 at Mylands

The bright and sunny colour palette used in this living room was surely inspired by the ample natural light streaming in from those fabulous windows. Blue makes a natural pairing for peachy pinks, and we love an unexpected pop of deep green.

Pictured: Country Living Charlbury Sofa at DFS

For true lovers of all things blue. Uniform colours can sometimes be just as striking as sharp contrasts. Use this idea on a small scale by colour matching a feature piece – perhaps an armchair, double height curtains, or an XL area rug – to your walls. We also love the idea of styling a coffee table with colour matched accessories.

Pictured: Breathe Paint at Graham & Brown

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